Obama Tasks Youth to Feed People 'in an Environment in Which It's Getting Warmer'

Pres. Obama today challenged Japanese youth to find a way to feed people by combating global warming.

In a presentation at the Miraikan Museum in Tokyo, Japan, Obama warned Japanese youth about the "dangers" of climate change:

"So I'm very proud to have been here today. I was so excited by what I saw. The young people here were incredibly impressive. And as one of our outstanding astronauts described, as we just are a few days after Earth Day, it's important when we look at this globe and we think about how technology has allowed us to understand the planet that we share, and to understand not only the great possibilities but also the challenges and dangers from things like climate change -- that your generation is going to help us to find answers to some of the questions that we have to answer."

Obama then challenged them to find a way to feed more people in the face of global warming:

"Whether it's: How do we feed more people in an environment in which it's getting warmer? How do we make sure that we're coming up with new energy sources that are less polluting and can save our environment? How do we find new medicines that can cure diseases that take so many lives around the globe? To the robots that we saw that can save people's lives after a disaster because they can go into places like Fukushima that it may be very dangerous for live human beings to enter into. These are all applications, but it starts with the imaginations and the vision of young people like you."

But, contrary to Obama's claim, global temperatures collected in five official databases confirm that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the past 17 years, according to Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH).

And, as Nature.com notes, warmer weather and increased CO2 is good for crops.

Biologist Josef Reichholf also concluded that warming, if it occurs, would be good for humanity: "Warming temperatures promote biodiversity." "The number of species increases exponentially from the regions near the poles across the moderate latitudes and to the equator. To put it succinctly, the warmer a region is, the more diverse are its species," he added.